Get that bitch a bird Bitches love birds
by Goldenvine128
Summary: (I wrote this to apply for an rp server, uhh yeah) Lichen Scruff has a crush that's almost bigger than her muscles, and goes on a quest to woo her.


A/N: Lore is that their clan, the Sunlit Branches, lives in the trees. Catching a parrot for someone is considered a highly romantic gesture (also flowers), wise eyes means elder, spark means apprentice, the rest you either don't need to know or can be figured out through context.

...

Most of the cats of Sunlit Branches were asleep at midnight, save those guarding the camp or sparks practicing their night-time fighting somewhere with their mentors. Yet a tail still flicked in the wise eyes den. Back and forth, claws working in and out of the wood beneath her, nervously driving herself away from sleep.

The 'what if's and 'maybe's buzzed in Lichen Scratch's brain like flies, circling one thought. Her...

She supposed at this point there was no sugar coating it. Head over heels was an understatement, more like somersaulting over and over into a crush sappier than a maple! All for the most beautiful she-cat she'd ever seen.

For one who always seemed to be in on the gossip of who liked who and which cats were weaving flowers for each other that year, her inability to admit this affection to the she-cat in question was somewhat hypocritical. But whenever she came close to doing so, there seemed to be a barrier preventing it from happening.

No matter how much she tried to ignore them, her old bitterness lingered in her mind. _No_, she told herself, _I am not going to think about the accident!_

But the memories still crept back, along with the fear that her love would remain unrequited in favor of a cat the could leap and dance through the trees just like Sunny Tail before them.

A deep breath.

She'd dealt with these feelings before, and could do it again. The roof on the tree their clan resided in had been built almost entirely under her direction, and everyone was glad of the protection from rain and snow in the winter months. Most of the dens had been woven by her steady paws, sticks and branches that held her family safe. Another deep breath. There would always be a place for her in her family, and helping the clan would always be the most important duty to her.

But she knew deep down that that was not enough. She didn't simply want to belong. She wanted to be loved, to have a cat she could curl herself around at night, some cat to groom and eat with and purr with...

A deep yearning filled her, a yawning chasm aching and desperate to hold another's heart with her own. She would like nothing more than to wake her crush up right now and unburden this weight, but fear had frozen her paws to the ground.

_Not right now. Not like this. _It had to be a grand gesture, something that would amaze and show her devotion. The budding had already past, and waiting another year would be torturous, unless...

Could she? But even as the barest hint of an idea crossed her mind she was already planning. A small smile bloomed on her worn face, her gapped and chipped teeth flashing in the starlight that streamed down. Such a soft grin might look out of place on a face like hers, but she certainly didn't care, because she'd found the perfect solution to her problem.

A parrot.

...

The trek to the parrot tree generally took a cat half a week round trip, but Lichen Scratch had taken a few days to simply get there. She walked at her own pace, allowing herself to slip back into the mindset of a warrior, completely in tune with the forest around her. There was a certain feeling of power, knowing that you'll never go hungry or thirsty or without shelter in these trees. She trusted her steps to be sure, nosing out bugs to eat as she walked. Better to save hunting energy for where it counted.

No matter how much a cat serves their clan, the taste of individuality and freedom that comes with making one's own way in the forest is not something any cat is quick to forget. Lichen Scratch walked as a predator, through and through.

So absorbed in her own thoughts, the screeching cry of a parrot made her flinch hard, startled. But quick shifts of one's center of balance didn't bode well for one sitting high in the trees...

Her own screech filled the air as she fell, tail and spine twisting to land her paws. Hitting the ground with a slight thud, pain lanced up her bad leg so sharply that she had to hold back a whimper.

The method of catching parrots that sparks are taught is to wait on a branch, concealed by leaves, and then spring out to catch a parrot in your jaws and land on the floor below. She was lucky that she'd been on a lower branch when she slipped, but there was no way that she'd be able to take a fall like that again and still manage the walk back. Clouds of doubt pushed at her, threatening to blind her completely. It was not help that dirt felt unnatural, alien beneath her paws which had spent their whole life in the treetops above.

But the fierce determination that had pushed her to start this quest had not waned, her heart still pushing her forward with desperation.

_Ok, so I won't be able to do this the conventional way. Fine. I've made my own path before, and I can do it again!_

With that confidence driving her paws, she set about her task.

Her back left paw is the one that couldn't walk well, but the others are perfectly fine. She could practically drag herself up trees by her front legs, discounting the fact that it would be impossible to do that without ripping all of ones claws out and getting a face-full of bark. It was this that she used to her advantage while digging into the ground with such a fervor that little sprays of dirt flew out behind her, accumulating into a steadily growing pile.

It was sometime in the afternoon that she finally sat back and felt satisfied with her work, moving on to the next step.

Gathering a smallish branch that could be dragged around in a cat's mouth, she smeared it with berries from a bush further away from the parrots. Bringing it back was a chore, and a nerve-wracking one at that. This plan could fall apart easily- the birds might not go for her bait, she might not be quick enough to catch one, she could be too weak to take her prize and make it back to camp…

Her crush might refuse her affections.

Gritting her teeth and tucking her chin, Lichen Scratch blocked all such thoughts from her mind and continued onward.

Finally, she came upon the hole she had dug earlier. The ensuing acrobatics were neither dignified nor graceful enough to be described to this reader, but suffice to say she ended up sitting in the hole, covered in dirt, with the berry covered branch resting across the opening above her. Using the natural camouflage of her pelt and the earth, she waited hoping that some unsuspecting parrot would land on the branch and meet its fate at her wicked claws.

She had dug the hole shallowly, so that she wouldn't need to jump to get out, but that worked against her as she waited, twisted into an awkward position of tense readiness and concealment. And wait she did. She couldn't see the sun in the sky, but the shadows around her seemed to move to quickly, shifting another hair downward whenever she turned her head. Tricky little things, shadows are. They seemed almost to turn her trap into a prison, maliciously reminding her of the passage of time and her growing unease at being in an environment so unlike her clan's home. A few parrots had hopped close to her, but not close enough. Their gentle squawks sounding more like jeering laughs, just out of paw reach, taunting her for her failure. Laughing, yelling, just like her clan mates would do if she came home empty-handed, covered in dirt and shame. Those two things being one in the same, to the opinion of any cat of the Sunlit Branches.

One of the first thing that sparks learned was patience. That was what separated them from the little sparks still with their monarchs, as many mentors could tell you. They wait on branches for a piece of prey to come close, focusing their entire attention on the air around them, and then pouncing. As her mentor had taught her and she had taught her apprentice, hunting was one of the most important skills for a cat to know.

One should not think of themself as a cat, with hunger and tiredness and itches to scratch, but just a hunter, their only goal being to catch their prey.

It was this mindset that Lichen Scratch tried in vain to slip back into. If anything, just to remove herself from her own thoughts for the time being. But try as she might, she couldn't ignore the tightness in her belly where her stomach begged for food. She couldn't even shift to alleviate the painful cramps that were developing in her neck and back.

While the birds' noses were not very good, and unlikely to pick up the scent of cat, their eyes were impeccable. If one of them picked up on the smallest twitch, her gambit and all of the work taken to create it would all be for waste.

There! Right in front of her paw, a huge beetle had surfaced from the ground. If she could just catch it in her jaws... she was salivating from the thought of a brief respite from her hunger. But to duck and get it- no. The risk was worth it. No bird had fallen for her trap yet, she thought bitterly. She could take a second for a well deserved snack.

_Crunch._

The sound of her munching down on the insect, but also the noise from a positively enormous parrot landing on and partially snapping the branch above her.

Her eyes shot open as she belatedly tried to snap at it with her jaws, but the bird was already taking off. _No, _she thought, _I'm not going to lose this bird!_

And with that she pushed herself up with her good leg and reached towards the heavens with claws grasping for a parrot that held her hope and her love in its wings.

Each step and hop along the branches towards her home made clear the sore and aching pain in her paws, but quite frankly she couldn't care less. Lichen Scratch was on top of the world, both literally and figuratively. As the entrance to camp neared, as she bounded through it, the only feeling in her that could be described was elation. But as her eyes laid on her crush, she found that she was tongue tied.

_Not this time. _No. She would not put away her feelings again. There was a great joy inside of her, one that demanded to be shared and nourished and cared for in the way that only two cats can do together. And so she opened her mouth, dropping the bloody mess of feathers at her love's paws.

"Would you be mine?"

A smile. Of surprise, of gratitude, of radiant happiness.

"Yes!"


End file.
